I've put in my 10,000 hours vibe coding (it feels that way, at least). Building with natural language instead of code has become a legitimate way for anyone—even a non-developer like me—to ship real, usable software.
Along the way, I've rage-quit Replit and Cursor more times than I'd like to admit, but what's kept me going is seeing what other people have been able to build. Here, I'm sharing some of my favorite vibe coding examples—including one of my own—in the hopes that they'll inspire you to give it a try (or at least not hurl your computer out the window).
Table of contents:
Which vibe coding tools to use
I'm a non-developer with some coding experience, and I've noticed that some AI coding tools are way easier to pick up and start using, while others have more of a learning curve.
Based on that, here's my ranking of the most popular vibe coding tools and their ideal use cases.
Beginner vibe coding apps
AI chatbots, especially ChatGPT and Claude, are great for prompt development, experimenting with basic user interface building, and troubleshooting build errors. When you connect them with MCP servers, you can build production-ready workflows straight from your chat window.
Lovable excels at building interfaces and web pages—you can even deploy your app straight on Lovable.
v0 is what I'd recommend for beginners who want to build simple apps (like pricing calculators).
Zapier lets you bring its power and 9,000+ app connections to whichever AI tool you're already using. You can connect Zapier MCP to your vibe coding tool—like Claude or ChatGPT—so your AI can take real action across your apps without you switching surfaces. Your app credentials stay managed by Zapier, not exposed to the model, so you keep full control while your AI does the work. Easy to set up, and it handles genuinely complex work behind the scenes.
Intermediate vibe coding apps
Replit is a nice mix of control and guardrails, so you can jump right in if you're non-technical but can still get a lot more from it if you want. It also lets you deploy your software, so you're covered all the way through the process.
Bolt is best for builders looking for a start-to-finish solution for web and mobile app development. It has lots of support for popular tech stacks.
Codex is built for tackling bigger, multi-part builds. It can run several tasks in parallel in a sandboxed environment, so nothing touches your live project until you say so. If you're already deep in the ChatGPT ecosystem and want to take on more complex vibe coding projects, Codex is a natural next step.
Claude Code lives in your terminal and works directly on your local files. You describe what you want built, Claude Code plans the approach, and then executes with your approval at each step. It's a strong fit if you've outgrown the point-and-click builders and want more control over your codebase without having to write the code yourself.
Learn more: Codex vs. Claude Code: Which is best?
Advanced vibe coding apps
Cursor is a full IDE (integrated development environment) billed as developer-first, but you can absolutely use it as a non-developer using chat.
Windsurf (formerly Codeium) is also an IDE, but it's better for enterprise users, especially those in regulated industries.
These advanced apps are the ones you'd want to use to take any projects you've built from the other apps mentioned to expand on them and maintain over time.
11 vibe coding examples to kick you into gear
Seeing what other (possibly more patient) people have created can help you power through your own builds and help you figure out which AI coding tool is best for your goals. Here are some unique vibe coding examples to inspire your next build.
Rush Home's AI brokerage agent
AI coding apps used: Claude, Zapier
Marcus Rush is the founder of Rush Home, a residential real estate brokerage. He's not a developer. But using Claude and Zapier MCP, he vibe coded "Russ"—an AI agent that runs the brokerage's daily operations.
Russ scores leads across a database of 11,000+ contacts, writes personalized follow-up plans for each of Marcus's real estate agents every morning, and manages his calendar. Every time a new interaction comes in, Russ recalculates a lead score by weighing factors like buyer vs. seller signals and price points, and then flows the updated score back into his CRM.
What made this build possible was connecting Claude to Zapier MCP, which gives the AI access to 9,000+ app connections and lets it take real action across them—from whatever work surface you're already in.
Before that, Marcus hit a ceiling with every automation tool he tried: if the platform didn't have a trigger for something, the workflow just didn't exist. "With Zapier MCP," Marcus says, "as long as I have the API docs, I can build exactly what I want. We're not limited to a trigger anymore."
Plywood Cutting Visualizer
AI coding app used: Claude
You can build simple tools for common use cases without learning any new software tools—just use the AI chatbot you're most familiar with.
Justin Lai, Educational Technologist at La Pietra Hawaii School for Girls, built this Plywood Cutting Visualizer in Claude. Once you're done, Claude Artifacts are shareable, so other folks can use them.
The app is simple but ridiculously useful. "Input the dimensions of a piece of plywood," Justin says, "and ask for the resulting size. It'll tell you how many pieces and how many scraps are left."
In general, using an AI chatbot like ChatGPT or Claude to help with early building steps and design a basic UI will make a big difference when using other AI building tools later.
Influencer ROI dashboard
AI coding apps used: Claude Code, Zapier Tables
Matt Brown, growth marketing manager at Zapier, manages over a hundred influencer partnerships and was tracking everything—views, clicks, conversions, LLM citation data—in a Zapier Table, but he needed a way to turn all this data into actionable insights. So he used Claude Code to build an interactive dashboard on top of it.
He gave Claude Code the JSON schema, described the end state, and let it propose an architecture. From there, he got specific: time-series charts for views and clicks, a sortable creator table, and month-level filtering.
The first version came together faster than he expected, and it immediately surfaced patterns the raw table never would have, including one creator whose video owned the top Google SERP for a high-intent Zapier keyword and was driving outsized conversions. He now uses it weekly to brief his team on which creators, channels, and topics are driving results and where they should be shifting investment.
A portfolio website
AI coding app used: Lovable
Michael Lembo, Staff Product Manager at BitGo, used Lovable to build a portfolio site. It even includes a custom chatbot that answers questions about Michael for anyone visiting the site.
Curious about the results of this build? Read Lembo's post about the launch.
YouTube upload automation
AI coding app used: Claude Code
David Quintanilla has managed Zapier's YouTube channel for over six years—long enough to become the unofficial upload button for the entire company. At peak, he was fielding 15 to 20 upload requests a month, each with its own trail of Slack threads with requests to tweak video titles, swap thumbnails, and push publishing dates. He vibe-coded a solution using Claude Code.
David described the problem using plain language, and Claude proposed the architecture: a self-serve upload form where team members log in with Google, fill out the metadata, attach a thumbnail, and submit. And they could do this all without ever touching a channel password. He added a Claude-powered SEO panel that generates three title options and an optimized description based on the topic. Now the whole video pipeline runs without him in the middle of it.
An admin for Supabase
AI coding app used: Lovable, v0, Cursor
The commercialization of AI is a relatively new development, and AI coding apps are rushing to meet users' demands. In the meantime, things are getting a bit meta: users are building their ideal workflows and processes for AI coding tools with AI coding tools.
One example: Andy Keil and Kyle Ledbetter built Dreambase to add functionality to Supabase, a popular (often native) database integration for AI coding tools. You'll likely interact with Supabase if you're adding a data storage or user authentication component to your vibe coding project.
Andy shared: "We start with Lovable and v0 to prototype features and then move to Cursor to fine-tune before shipping to production. We've built several apps this way, and our most recent is Dreambase. We use this same flow to support some of our enterprise clients as well."
Lambo Levels
AI coding app used: ChatGPT, Lovable
Joe Frabotta, Growth Marketer, vibe coded a tool to help Crypto enthusiasts.
"Lambo Levels is a fun and quirky app that helps you quickly visualize potential crypto gains on specific tokens," he told me. "It's not a portfolio tracker—it's more about dreaming big with your 'moonshots.' My workflow is to use ChatGPT to help write and refine prompts into more developer-friendly language, then drop them into Lovable."
Taste
AI coding tool used: Lovable, Cursor
Now it's my turn to brag. I built Taste both to see how far I could push my vibe coding with Cursor (I also used Lovable for building the UI). I wanted to create a tool to catalog my favorite meals at restaurants and favorite recipes. But I realized that it could be even more useful with a social networking component—that way, people could share dietary preferences and allergies. It was fun to build, and the end result is pretty useful.
WordPress-adjacent apps
AI coding tool used: Replit, Bolt
Matt Medeiros, Publisher at The WP Minute, has built all sorts of things with Replit and Bolt. And each one reinforces his position as an industry thought leader.
His standalone apps include:
Podcast Power, a web app for listening to podcasts about podcasts.
Pulse, an app that tracks WordPress news and summarizes each article.
WP API Explorer, a way to discover and test WordPress REST API endpoints.
And that's not all—he also vibe coded an interactive game for the Gravity Forms WordPress plugin.
SEO calculator
AI coding app used: Cursor
Tim Metz, Director of Marketing at Animalz, used Cursor to vibe code an SEO calculator lead magnet. The tool effectively answers prospects' questions, helping Animalz send them to the next step in their marketing funnel. Try it out, or learn more about the building process.
MIXCARD
AI coding app used: Cursor
Alfred Megally is the independent creative and vibe coder behind MIXCARD, which turns your Spotify playlists into physical postcards.
ttyl
AI coding app used: Cursor
Robinson Greig, Founder of Off-Trail Studio, built ttyl with Cursor as a fun way to send a voice memo to your future self.
Vibe code across your tech stack with Zapier
A lot of the best builds in this list have one thing in common: the AI does more than just generate code—it takes action. Zapier makes this possible at scale, giving your AI tool access to 9,000+ app connections so it can update a CRM, send a message, and practically anything else you need it to without you leaving the tool you're already building in.
If you're working in Claude or ChatGPT, Zapier MCP is how you connect them: your credentials stay managed by Zapier, your AI gets to work, and you stay in control of what it can touch. That way, shipping something that actually works across your stack isn't an afterthought—you've had the governance layer in place from the first prompt.
Related reading:
This article was originally published in May 2025 by Maddy Osman. The most recent update, with contributions from Jessica Lau, was in May 2026.
